AMERICAN HORROR STORY: COVEN Recap: Burn, Witch, Burn

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Howdy friends and freaks. I’m back from a Japanese vacation and while I was gone, American Horror Story: Coven has become the BEST current show on television (and Shawn Depasquale pitched in with the recaps, of which I’m greatly appreciated). The season is not even half over yet, and we’ve already got some major forces in play and huge questions to be answered:

-How can the very human and very sadistic Madame LaLaurie (a/k/a MMB- Madame Mama Boucher) stand a chance against a coven of super-powered witches?

-Who is the new supreme (later, Emma Roberts!) and will Fiona be able to stop her from being so… supreme, all the time.

-Will Queenie ever find a boyfriend (who isn’t a 200 year old minotaur)?

-Will FrankenEvanRoberts find his humanity again?

-WHY IS THIS SHOW SO FREAKING AWESOME?

Lucky for us, episode 5 has aired. I watched it. Let’s get into that old black magic with another edition of the American Horror Story: Coven recap!

American Horror Story: Coven: Episode 5- Burn, Witch, Burn

Part 1: OKCupid

We start this week off a few hundred years ago, as MMB entertains a fancy dinner party at her New Orleans mansion. She’s also “entertaining” a bunch of mutilated slaves upstairs, but such talk shouldn’t be had during such a pleasant evening of merriment. MMB is trying like mad to marry off her daughters to the wealthy bachelors of the city, and her way of doing so is offering tours through her “chamber of horrors” (she has clearly never heard of online dating). She finds a taker in a guy I’ll call Ye Olde Cap’n Crunch, and her oldest daughter Boquita, which is a much sillier name. It’s Halloween night, and we take a trip upstairs to view MMB’s menagerie of people who don’t really have a fondness for MMB, what with the mutilations and all. Ye Olde Cap’n Crunch sticks his hands in a bowl of eyeballs, and then a bowl of intestines, and then is, like, “I draw the line at intestines!” and leaves in a huff, followed by a scoffing MMB. Madame’s daughters are like, “We’ll never get married if our mom keeps making our boyfriends touch body parts! We’ve got to kill her!,” which seems very reasonable. MMB re-enters the room and says, “You’re gonna miss dessert!,” but in reality has her daughters forcefully thrown into cages and promises to keep them there for one year’s time. She heard the murder plot and isn’t exactly “cool” with it. Mom of the year.

We cut to present day, and the end of the last episode, and about 50 zombies heading to the front door of HogWitches, including MMB’s beloved and now-dead daughters. Now we understand why MMB is so scared.

And… it’s zombie time.

Part 2: Jesus to the rescue

Back at a Halloween party, Fiona runs to console the just “had acid thrown into her face” Cordelia, which makes her a decisively better mom than MMB. Before Fiona can survey the damage, she catches a sneak peek of a hooded figure making its way out of the room. Oh, and Cordelia’s face is MESSED UP. We arrive at a hospital waiting room as Fiona gets the news that Cordelia has had sulphuric acid thrown into her face, and that her daughter is now blind. Fiona isn’t so thrilled with the news. Back at HogWitches, the girls start going through their “how to survive a zombie invasion” protocol and quickly run from the windows (good idea). Christian neighbor dude (Jesus) is like “C’mon, this is obviously a prank” and decides to head outside. Smart going, Jesus. A quick cut to Marie Laveau, who is levitating in the middle of a voodoo prayer altar, which is sooooooo Marie Laveau. Back at the house, Jesus and a bunch of random wandering stoners decide to mess with the zombies. This can only end well.

Part 3: Pill Poppin’

A floating Marie says “Begin,” and it’s like that scene in Attack of the Clones: All the zombies suddenly “snap into” a state of alertness. Bye-bye, stoners. Jesus gets a hammer to the back, and our witches frantically try and think of a way to save him, while MMB tries to visit her now dead daughters, which Zoe doesn’t think is the best idea. The gang wants to hide in Spalding’s room, but Spalding is all like, “Ummmmm, how bout we pick a room that doesnt have the dressed up corpse of Madison in it” in his mute way of speaking. MMB and the girls are shuffled upstairs as Nan heads outside to save Jesus, which she does. Nan and Jesus wait in a car as zombies crowd around. Cute first date. Back in the hospital, the now-blind Cordelia sleeps, while her mother nervously watches. Fiona takes a stroll around the ER in a hunt for pills and telekinetically enters the hospital’s pharmacy. Crafty girl. She grabs a purseful and a mouthful of pills and heads back into the hospital. Fiona wanders into the room of a screaming woman, whose stillborn child lays to her side. Fiona gets the woman to talk to her dead baby, which is… creepy, but then Fiona magically brings the baby back to life, which is less creepy and very un-Fiona like. She’s a good witch, after all!

Part 4: Zash!

Back at Zombie manor, Nan and Jesus are getting attacked on all sides by (you guessed it) zombies. Zoe saves the day by distracting the monsters with banging pots and pans (classic zombie survival stuff), and the zombies make a bee-line (or a zee-line) for our hero. Back inside, MMB checks on her new bestie Queenie before heading downstairs to help. MMB is in the kitchen, doing something with eggs, when her dearly departed daughters decide to make a timely appearance at the windows. MMB is smart and wants a face to face reunion, so she lets the long rotting Boquita (still a weird name) into the kitchen, who then begins to choke her mother to death. Back outside, Zoe has locked herself in some kind of underground tunnel, as you do. Queenie and Spalding are concerned about how long everyone’s been gone, when both are attacked by one of MMB’s dead daughters. Queenie voodoo dolls herself with some scissors to no avail, and all seems lost until MMB saves the day with a spear through her daughter’s chest. Queenie and a weeping MMB embrace, while outside Jesus is bleeding out in Nan’s car. The two head for the house and are quickly stopped by some zombies, and then… then, THEN ZOE CUTS A ZOMBIE HEAD OFF WITH A CHAINSAW! ZASH (zoe + ash, and how I will refer to her for the rest of the episode). “Get inside!”, Zash commands, as she single-handedly fights off the un-dead horde!

Part 5: Burn, Zombie, Burn (Zombie inferno)

Then her chainsaw runs out of juice; oops. It’s cool, ’cause Zash reaches out and says some witch stuff and SUDDENLY the zombie dies AND Marie La’Bassett falls out of her floaty trance. I guess we know who the new supreme is. ZASH! Marie’s friends are like “What’s up?,” to which Marie replies, “Uh, oh.”. Back at HogWitches, Zash is justifiably surprised with her new ultimate bad-ass powers. At the hospital, Cordelia’s murder-husband shows up, and he and Fiona yell at each other for a while. Whatever, murder-husband. You killed Alexandra Breckenridge. Go away. A nurse then understandably is like, “We’re in a hospital. Stop screaming, you damn lunatics”. Fiona gives murder-husband a few minutes with her daughter and angrily leaves the room. Murder-husband acts all sincere, and Cordelia suddenly snaps awake, while having weird visions of murder-husband cheating on her. Typical witch stuff. It’s the next day at HogWitches, and ladies, you’ve got some zombie burning to do! We find out Jesus is asleep in Nan’s bed, and Fiona is cool with it. Fiona excuses Zoe and Nan from pyre duties and is like, “Gimme a moment alone with my zombies.” MMB comes to mourn her daughters and tell us a little more about how horrible she is. We know. We’ve been watching the show. MMB and Fiona share a moment of “bad-motherness” until Fiona calls MMB a maid, and we giggle.

Part 6: Right Place, Wrong Time

The council is yelling at Fiona, yet again, and lists all the ways that she’s a shitty supreme, and then demands she resign as the supreme. SNAP! The council claims supremacy until a new main witch can be found. Fiona has not nice words for the ladies. Like, Myrtle Snow is the hooded acid attacker. DOUBLE SNAP! The council starts to have second thoughts about good ol’ Myrtle, and then Fiona really starts laying it into her. Turns out Myrtle really is crazy, and the person who blinded Cordelia. Fiona keeps her job and Myrtle is in trouble. Well done, Fiona. Also, Myrtle is going to get burnt at the stake. You guys… they quoted Monty Python. THIS IS THE BEST SHOW ON TELEVISION! And then the best scene in television in a long time happens: The coven, plus the council, leads Myrtle out to a spot in the middle of nowhere, where a stake is set up for some witch burnin’ action. Myrtle is tied up (willingly, mind you) and doused in gasoline as Fiona has herself a smoke. Fiona approaches her best adversary, flicks her smoke, and bye bye, Myrtle. Best show.

Part 7: Voodoo Dolling

Back at HogWitches, Fiona pops some pills and Queenie wants to know if she’s a good witch or a bad witch, as we find out that the scars that led to Myrtle’s death were really Queenie Voodoo Dolling herself in a glass of acid. THIS SHOW! Queenie is freaked, and Fiona invites her to sit, which is a bad idea for Queenie. Fiona sweet talks her and throws out the “supreme word,” which, of course, Queenie perks up to. Queenie cheers up and gets to leave with her life, as we cut to creepy Spalding and his dead-girlfriend Madison, who is starting to rot, in a limb-losing kind of way. Back at the burn site, crazy necromancer Misty decides it’s a good idea to bring Myrtle back to life. And she does.

Final Thoughts:

THIS SHOW IS SO AWESOME ALL THE TIME HOLY SH*T I LOVE THIS SHOW I WISH IT WAS NEXT WEDNESDAY ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!